


and rise, rise in the desert sand

by hollytrees



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, Fix-It, Pen Pals, Slavery
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-15
Updated: 2016-09-15
Packaged: 2018-08-15 03:06:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,622
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8040034
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hollytrees/pseuds/hollytrees
Summary: Padmé and Anakin keep in touch after TPM.(Or, the author has started writing Fialleril's Pen Pals AU, possibly because they hate themselves.)





	and rise, rise in the desert sand

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Fialleril](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fialleril/gifts).
  * Inspired by [The One Where Anakin and Padmé Are Pen Pals](https://archiveofourown.org/works/7445473) by [Fialleril](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fialleril/pseuds/Fialleril). 



> Oh god what have I done.
> 
> This is based on Fialleril's Pen Pals AU, obviously. Like, almost all of the credit for this story goes to her. The title is from The Mountain Goats, but I can't remember which song. Possibly "The Ballad of Bull Ramos"? It also might change if I get a better idea, because I'm not totally happy with it. ("Are you ever happy with anything ever, Hollis?" No, no, I'm not. I'm a perfectionist/it's part of my charm.)
> 
> I had other things to say, but I have forgotten them now.
> 
> EDIT: The title is from "The Ballad of Bull Ramos"! I had misremembered it. I have fixed it now. Also, I have a tumblr. It's holly-trees. (I mean, I have several tumblrs, but that one is for talking about fanfic.)

Padmé didn't contact Anakin for nearly two months after he left Naboo. She would like to have said that she’d left him alone for the first month to give him a chance to settle in, but in truth, her silence had nothing to do with him at all. A monarch of Naboo couldn’t expect much in the way of free time in ordinary circumstances and Queen Amidala did not have the luxury of ordinary circumstances. Between cementing new relations with the Gungans, choosing a new senator, pushing for harsher repercussions for the Trade Federation, and aiding the planet’s recovery from the invasion, it was a miracle she found time to sleep. Padmé Naberrie was busy too; her family had not been treated well in the camps and her sister was struggling to find a counselor she felt she could work with.                                                     

So Padmé didn’t even think to check her com for that first month, didn’t really think of Anakin at all until his face abruptly popped into her head one night as she was lying in bed. She shot straight up, panicked.

“Your Highness?” Someone – Fé, probably, Padmé was pretty sure that it was Fé tonight – turned the light on and drew her blaster. “What’s going on?”

“I’m a terrible friend.” Padmé groped blindly for her comlink on the bedside table, eyes still adjusting to the light.

She didn’t have to look at Fé to know that the other girl was frowning, confused, as she tucked her blaster away. “So nothing’s wrong?”

Padmé settled back into bed, com in hand. “I’m not being attacked, Fé, I promise. I just remembered something.”

“Well, alright.” Fé sighed and made what appeared to be a conscious effort to relax. “Would you like me to turn the light off?”

“Yes, please.” Padmé scrolled through her unread messages. Most of them were from Sola, complaining about counseling or half-jokingly threatening to disown her and replace her with Rabé, who at least answered her com on occasion. A few were from Palo and their friends in the legislative youth program, offering her a place to vent if she needed it. One was from her mother, asking if she was coming to family dinner that night. (She had not. She could not seem to make her parents understand that if they wanted her at dinner, they needed to let her know weeks or months, not hours, in advance.) But none were from Anakin. She sighed, relief flooding through her chest. Anakin probably didn’t think she hated him or thought she was too good for him. He was likely just as busy as she was.

 

Her relief didn’t last long. By the end of the week, a seed of worry planted itself in her stomach. Her thoughts drifted to Anakin in moments between audiences and meetings, while she scrubbed her face clean of paint, and as she checked her com before she went to sleep. (She was slowly making her way back into Sola’s good graces, it seemed, although Rabé kept pouting about how she had begun to feel like one of the family when Padmé had come along and ruined it all for her.) Anakin still said nothing.

 _He’s just settling in. It must be a huge adjustment._ Padmé reminded herself over and over again. _Give him time._ But the worry grew and grew, until she wondered one morning as she lay in bed if they had perhaps miscommunicated before Anakin left Naboo and he was just waiting for _her_ to contact _him_ , not the other way around. She snorted at her own foolishness and rolled over to snag her com off of the bedside table.

“Oh, good, you’re up.” Saché yawned from the doorway. “I was about to wake you. You’ve got an audience in three hours.”

Padme groaned and buried her head in her pillow, fingers closing around her comlink.

“It’s not that bad.” Saché chided. “It’s just – ” she paused to yawn again “ – excuse me, just Horace Vancil’s final confirmation hearing for his senate appointment. Unless – ” another yawn “ – unless Boss Nass has concerns he hasn’t already voiced, it should go smoothly.”

Padmé raised her head from her pillow and turned to stare at her handmaiden, who was clutching the doorframe with one hand. “Do you know what I miss?”

“Is it being able to sleep alone?” Saché made a valiant effort at keeping her eyes open. “Because you’ve mentioned that one before.”

“No. Well, yes, but that wasn’t it.” Padmé pulled herself out of bed, com still in hand.

“Then no,” Saché slurred, swaying slightly, “I have no idea. What do you miss?”

“Not needing two hours to get ready before I go out.” Padmé saw Yané coming down the hall over Saché's shoulder and caught the other girl’s eye. She made a series of complex hand gestures and facial expressions that roughly translated to “please make Saché go to bed.”

It wasn’t until Eirtaé was trying to pin her hairpiece onto her head and hissing “for the love of all things holy, Padmé, try to keep _still_ ” that Padmé actually opened her comlink and started to write a message to him. She considered apologizing for her silence, but couldn’t find a way that didn’t rub her position in his face, so she settled on a “Hey, how are you?” instead.

Anakin hadn’t responded when she returned from Vancil’s confirmation hearing. She didn’t think much of it – as far as she knew, it could be the middle of the night for him. He still hadn’t responded when she returned from the official send-off of the Senate delegation (a delegation that she was already trying to mentally reconfigure without making unnecessary enemies if their request for an additional senator to represent the Gungans was denied) or when she woke the next morning to the news that the Courts had finally bothered to try key members of the Trade Federation for their invasion of Naboo, but she didn’t pay it too much mind. For one thing, the newsfeeds absorbed almost the entirety of her attention. For another, she knew, she realized, very little about a Jedi’s daily routine when they were not attempting to mediate negotiations, fighting off invasions, or betting other people’s ships on pod races.

 

Days passed without any word from Anakin and Padmé found herself pressing her fingers into the side of the throne to keep from tapping or making sure her collar was straight. Her anxiety wasn’t entirely Anakin’s fault; it wasn’t even mostly Anakin’s fault, but she couldn’t help but think that it would have been nice to have a spot of brightness in her day, if only to give her something to distract herself with whenever the small, shameful part of her that wanted to smash Nute Gunray’s head into a wall over and over again reared its ugly head.

Six days after sending her message to Anakin, Padmé returned to her chambers in a foul mood. Her day had started with an audience with a group of “concerned citizens” (“They _are_ citizens, technically, and they _are_ concerned.” Rabé reminded her whenever she started muttering about the dishonesty of a group of wealthy landowners who barely spent half the year on planet styling themselves the way a neighborhood association worried about plasma contaminating their drinking water might.) complaining about the repartitions to the Gungans, followed by a session with the advisory council about how to deal with the projected budget shortfall if the Republic did not agree to subsidize their rebuilding and rehabilitation efforts, which was interrupted by the unwelcome news that Nute Gunray intended to sue her for libel. Panaka and her handmaidens ganged up on her shortly after sunset and convinced her to stop scanning the tax code for loopholes that could be closed and get some rest before she ran herself into the ground.

After scrubbing her face, Padmé sat at her vanity so that Eirtaé could take down her hairstyle and sighed, resisting the urge to bury her face in her hands. Her head pounded from long hours of staring at the indecipherable tax code and her jaw ached from grinding her teeth all day. She knew she ought to be tired – she’d spent the night tossing and turning before giving up on sleep around dawn – but she was too restless to close her eyes. Her legs twitched with the urge to pace, but Eirtaé would yell at her if she got too fidgety. She snatched her datapad off of the table, just to do something.

“That isn’t work, is it?” Eirtaé asked.

“No. I just thought that I’d find that Jedi action novel that Saché likes.” Padmé turned the datapad on.

Eirtaé hmmed. “The really terrible one?”

“Excuse you,” Saché called from the closet, where she was hanging Queen Amidala’s gown, “ _Ballad of the Starkiller_ is a literary _masterpiece_.”

Eirtaé huffed and carefully set a hair extension on the table. “ _Ballad of the Starkiller_ is a melodramatic, historically inaccurate blight upon the galaxy and the author is too in love with the narcissistic monster of a hero to give him, the other characters, or the story any complexity.”

“It isn’t Lysses’s fault that he’s just more beautiful and talented than everyone else and also that he’s right all the time!” Padmé caught a glimpse of Saché’s smirk in the mirror, quickly replace by a wide-eyed look of complete sincerity. “He can’t help it!”

Padmé shook her head, laughing quietly to herself. Eirtaé growled, although Padmé couldn’t tell if it was directed at her for moving her head or at Saché’s successful efforts at winding her up. She tuned out Eirtaé’s retort about how stories were deliberately constructed, not found whole and unchangeable in baskets in rivers. They had this argument, it seemed, at least twice a month and while it was usually undeniably entertaining, a notification had caught her attention. She had a new message, rerouted from her com.

She opened it, heart leaping when she saw the name beside the message before sinking again as her eyes scanned over the first few lines.

“Hi.” Anakin had written. “I’m fine, I guess, but the Council says I’m not supposed to talk to you because you’re an attachment, like my mom, and I have to let you go if I’m going to be a Jedi. But I _want_ to keep talking to you. You’re my friend.”

Padmé scowled at the datapad. Didn’t the Council _know_ that Anakin was only a nine year old boy making a huge adjustment? Why would they ever think it was fine to ask him to give up his mother and his friends when he was already under so much strain? Who was he supposed to get emotional support from, Kenobi? She liked Kenobi well enough, she supposed, for someone she didn’t know very well at all, but it seemed didn’t seem fair that Anakin had to rely on the grieving man for emotional support and stability.

Yané bustled into the room with a tray of food and almost set the it down on the vanity. Eirtaé squawked something outraged about not squashing the hair extensions. Yané rolled her eyes, but she turned to set it on the desk instead, before discovering that, as usual, it was papered in books and pieces of flimsy. She sighed. “Is there anywhere I can – ”

“Table by the bed should be clear.” Padmé muttered, not taking her eyes off of the datapad. “Just take the ugly vase off of it.”

“That vase,” Saché said in the same tone she used when defending _Ballad of the Starkiller_ ’s literary merits, “is a priceless treasure – ”

“ – of ancient Naboo art. We know. It’s also hideous and useless and Yané is carrying something not useless that needs to go on that table. Please take it out of here.” Padmé inhaled through her nose, trying to calm her anger enough to articulate a response.

Saché sighed as though she were much put-upon, but picked up the vase anyway and started cooing reassurances to it. Yané slid the tray onto the table with an exhale of relief, then turned to face Padmé. “I thought you agreed that you weren’t going to work for the rest of the night.”

“I did.” Padmé typed “What the fuck is wrong with them?”.

“Then why are you working?” Yané rested her hands on her hips.

“I’m not.” Padmé erased the first draft of her message.

“It sure looks like you’re working.” Yané tried to snatch the datapad out of her hands. Padmé brought it to her chest.

“I’m not. I’m just talking to Anakin.” Padmé snapped.

Yané squinted at her. “Who?”

“You’ve met Anakin, he was on the ship with us from – ” Padmé cut herself off, abruptly remembering that Yané had stayed behind when they went to Corsucant. “Well,” she amended, “you definitely met him after the invasion ended. He was at the funeral – ”

“ – an excellent time to socialize if there ever was one.” Eirtaé muttered, combing her fingers through Padmé’s hair.

Padmé glared over her shoulder at her handmaiden. “ – and at the celebration.”

Yané’s brow furrowed, concentrating.

“He’s nine, about this tall – ” Padmé gestured and shut her mouth as realization dawned on Yané’s face.

“Ohhhhh.”  Yané nodded slowly. “Is he, you know, ‘zoom-zoom-pew-pew-pew’ boy?”

“Yes.” Padmé said as Eirtaé rolled her eyes and added, “That’s not what starships sound like. No starship in the history of the galaxy has ever gone ‘zoom.’”

Yané, who had been on watch-Padmé-sleep duty the night before, had apparently reached the stage of sleep deprivation where she thought that the appropriate response to this was to race around the room, using her fingers as blasters, shouting “pew pew.”

Sabé poked her head into the room and asked. “What’s going on here?”

Everyone froze. Complete silence descended on the room. Padmé pulled her head up from her datapad. Eirtaé placed herself between Sabé and the hair extensions, glaring, as though the other girl had any talent for working with them at all. Saché, cradling the vase in her arms, stopped cooing. Yané, balanced precariously on the edge of Padmé’s bed, finger-blasters still waving in the air, whispered “pew pew”, before tipping off her perch and sprawling across the floor.

“Thank you, Yané.” Sabé placed her hands on her hips. “That explained less than nothing.”

Padmé took a deep breath. She had been elected for her natural sense of leadership. She couldn’t abandon her core qualities now, when the situation was trivial and awkward. “Well, Yané is pretending to be a starship, Eirtaé is – ”

“ – crushing my hopes and dreams.” Yané called from behind the bed.

“Well, if your hopes and dreams involve becoming a starship,” Eirtae snapped as she put the extensions away, “you should at least _try_ to sound like one.”

“Saché is adopting the ugly vase.” Padmé soldiered on as if there had been no interruption.

“Shh,” Saché whispered to the vase, “she doesn’t mean it.”

“And I,” Padmé raised her voice meaningfully, “am talking to Anakin.”

“Oh, Anakin?” Sabé brightened. “How is he?”

Padmé scowled and handed over the datapad. A small part of her was gratified to watch Sabé’s eyes widen in horror as she scanned the message. Sabé shook her head and returned the datapad to Padmé. “Please don’t fight the Jedi Council. They’re powerful political enemies and they have lightsabers.”

“I’m not going to fight them.” Padmé narrowed her eyes at Sabé’s scoff. “I’m not! I’m only the leader of a small, Mid-Rim planet. Fighting them would be stupid unless I was in Vancil or Palpatine’s position. I’m just going to help a member of the Order break a few rules.”

“If you say so.” Sabé brushed by her to collect Yané off of the floor. Padmé opened her mouth to protest further, then thought better of it. Instead, she typed, “Well, to hell with that. You’re my friend too and I don’t want to stop talking to you either. How are you with encryptions?”

Anakin didn’t respond at once, which Padmé was beginning to expect from him, so she ate her dinner and read a few select passages from _Ballad of the Starkiller_ out loud to everyone but Saché’s chagrin.

“My mother used to hide it from me because she didn’t want me to read the sexy parts and then get let down by actual sex.” Saché giggled, lying on her back on the floor. Padmé frowned, trying to recall a single passage that made sex seem even remotely appealing and coming up blank.

“Is your mother turned on by misplaced commas?” Eirtaé asked, arms crossed over her chest, valiantly pretending that she was not having fun.

“You know,” Saché said after a long pause, “it would explain a lot, actually. My dad – ”

Padmé clicked her datapad off. “And I’m going to bed now before I start hearing things that can’t be unheard.”

“I wasn’t going to say anything gross!” Saché protested. “I was just going to say – ”

Padmé covered her ears. “I can’t hear you.”

“And here on the right, we have the Queen of Naboo, elected for her precocious wisdom, widely praised for her maturity and poise.” Sabé gestured grandly at Padmé, then ducked her head shyly when Rabé burst into giggles.

Padmé sighed and dropped her hands from her ears. “Goodnight, everyone.” No one moved. She rolled her eyes and added. “Go to bed.”

“You’re not my mother. You can’t tell me what to do.” Saché pulled herself up off of the floor anyway.

“No,” Padmé agreed, “I’m not attracted to misused punctuation. I _am_ the Queen, though, so I can tell you what to do.”

A few of the handmaidens gave her exaggerated bows, but, with the exception of Rabé, they all left shortly after that.

“I’m on watch-Padmé-sleep duty.” Rabé gave an apologetic shrug and settled into her post by the door.

“I figured.” Padmé settled into bed.

The com on her bedside table chirped.

“If it’s Sola, tell her to bother me instead. I’ll be awake all night anyway.” Rabé said.

“Still trying to usurp my place in the family?” Padmé teased, reaching for her com.

“You know it.” Rabé’s robes rustled in the darkness. “Still probably can’t make family dinner without at least a week’s advance notice, though, so you don’t have to worry too much on that front.”

Padmé snorted, then quietly sighed, relieved, when she saw who the sender was. Anakin had sent her a silly winky face and “I grew up in the quarters.”

Padmé frowned, tilting her head to the side, and began to write “Is that a good thing or a bad thing for encryptions?”

His response was almost immediate. “Good.”

She sat up in bed and flicked a light on.

“Your Highness?” Rabé sighed. “You know I was serious when I offered to talk to Sola instead.”

“I’m not talking to Sola.” Padmé said as she typed “Do you have time to help me set it up now?”

“Then who are you talking to at this time of night?” Rabé crossed her arms and leveled what Padmé assumed was a glare at her – with the hood up, it was hard to tell for sure.

“Anakin.” Just at that moment, the boy in question responded “Yeah.”

Padmé nodded at her com and dropped it onto the sheets. She snagged her datapad off of her desk and returned to bed.

“Padmé…”

Padmé rolled her eyes at the warning in Rabé’s tone. “I’m just setting up an encrypted channel with Anakin. I’m not doing work.”

“Padmé,” Rabé rubbed her face under the hood with one hand, “you need sleep. You can’t survive on ardees alone.”

Padmé glanced up from her datapad and raised an eyebrow, challenging.

“It’ll stunt your growth!” Rabé protested. “And it’ll give you heart problems!”

“Joke’s on you, cause the Healers say that I’m not going to grow any taller anyway.” Padmé muttered. “Besides, Kyran’s had a cup of ardees every single morning since he turned eight and he hits his head on most of the doors in the historic district if he’s not careful.”

“Who’s Kyran?” Rabé asked.

“He and Sola used to date before Sola started seeing Darred.” Padmé glanced up at Rabé. “He’s giant.”

“I figured.” Rabé sighed. “I’m not going to convince you that you ought to go to sleep, am I?”

“No.”  Padmé shrugged apologetically. “This might be my only chance to make sure that Anakin can talk to me without getting caught.”

Rabé sighed again. “Well, at least I won’t have to deal with you when you’re angry at everyone tomorrow.”

“You don’t know that I’ll be angry at everyone tomorrow.” Padmé said for form’s sake. She didn’t need to look up or see under Rabé’s hood to see that the other girl was rolling her eyes.

 

Rabé was right – Padmé was irritable the next morning after her second sleepless night in a row, but it was hard to regret her decision for too long. Anakin was easy to talk to – easier, in a lot of ways, than her parents, who didn’t always understand how she could be so committed to something that made her so stressed, or Sola, who had so much else going on that Padmé felt bad adding to her anxieties, or her friends from the Legislative Youth Program, who could use any information she gave them against her in a future election. Besides, Anakin was clearly lonely at the Jedi Temple and she was happy to provide any comfort she could.

“Nobody really wants to talk to me here.” He told her one night. “Master Obi-wan and some of the archivists are the only people who don’t make me feel like I’m doing everything wrong all of the time, but I still can’t really talk to them either.”

They settled into a routine of talking to each other for a bit before bed every night quickly and it only took a week or so before Anakin admitted to her that he was scared.

“I know fear is the path to the dark side.” He said. “And I promise, I’m trying to not be afraid but I’m so scared for Mom.”

Padmé frowned, her opinion of the Jedi slowly sinking just a little bit more, as it had been since they refused to allow Anakin to join their ranks. “Fear is a pretty normal human emotion.” She reminded him. “And why are you scared for your mom?”

“I know it’s stupid, because Watto didn’t usually hurt her, but I keep thinking about what if he did.”

Padmé’s brain refused to believe what her eyes were telling her for a full minute.

“What.” She whispered. “ _What._ ”

Eirtaé said something from her post by the door, but Padmé couldn’t hear it over the pounding of blood in her ears.

“She’s still with Watto?” her fingers typed and sent with little input from Padmé herself.

“Yeah.” Anakin responded. “Unless he sold her.”

Padmé sat straight upright. “The Jedi didn’t send anyone to free her?”

“No.” Anakin said. “Why would they?”

Padmé dropped her comlink and buried her face in her hands. Eirtaé – when had she crossed the room? – placed a hand on her shoulder.

“Padmé?” Eirtaé asked for what was probably the tenth time. “Are you alright?”

Padmé shook her head and thrust the com at her. Eirtaé took it and read the messages silently, before coming to sit next to her on the bed. “That’s – ”

“I think I’m going to be sick.” Padmé moaned. “I can’t – that poor woman – and I didn’t even _think_ to ask or – or _do_ anything – I just assumed – ”

Eirtaé wrapped an arm around Padmé with surprising gentleness. “You can’t fix everything in the galaxy. You weren’t elected to fix everything in the galaxy.”

“Yes.” Padmé’s head spun, but pieces of a plan started to come together. “But I should fix _this_.”

Eirtaé hmmed. “Someone should.”

“I stayed in her house and ate her food and her son got us off Tatooine and helped defeat the Trade Federation.” Padmé insisted. “This is the least I can do.” Reluctantly, she pulled herself out of Eirtaé’s embrace. “Could you call Captain Panaka and everyone else down for me? I think I have an idea.”

 

Captain Panaka didn’t like her idea. Padmé didn’t worry about this. He usually didn’t like any of her ideas, especially when they involved waking him up in the middle of the night, but she almost always got her way in the end.

“First of all,” he rubbed a hand over his face, “you cannot use taxpayer money to free a slave. Yes,” he added before anyone could interrupt, “it’s a good cause and sentient trafficking is undeniably wrong, but just because the Republic subsidies have come through doesn’t mean that we have money to spare. The planet is just keeping its head above water, your Highness.”

“Fine.” Padmé shrugged. “I won’t use taxpayer money then. I’ll use my own.” When everyone looked at her in surprise, she scoffed. “Well, I get paid, don’t I? It’s not like I have much need to spend it either.”

“The second problem,” Panaka continued as though she hadn’t spoken, which meant that she’d won that point, “is that you want to be there.”

“Yes.” Padmé squared her shoulders. “It’s personal. I owe her a debt.”

Panaka sighed. “Everyone on the planet owes her a debt.”

“Yes.” Padmé said. “But I ate her food and slept in her house and she _knows_ me. She doesn’t know everyone else on the planet.”

“Even if it’s personal, the Queen can’t disappear for three days without explanation.”

“Sabé can be the Queen instead.”

Everyone glanced at Sabé, who rolled her eyes.

“Yes,” Sabé agreed, “Sabé can be the Queen instead. Sabé doesn’t mind. Sabé definitely isn’t starting to think that she might be allergic to the makeup. Sabé is happy to have her whole face break out.”

“See?” Padmé turned back to Captain Panaka. “Listen, I’ll take two handmaidens with me. I won’t start any fights. I’ll be with them at all times, I promise.”

Captain Panaka exhaled through his nose. “Just one more thing.”

Padmé tried not to grin; she was going to get her way. “Yes?”

“There is…a certain symbolism to having your decoy act in your place at functions when your life isn’t endangered. Especially in the case of the Gungans, since they know that you have tried to use a decoy to intercede on your behalf before.”

Any trace of a grin died away. Padmé chewed on her lip. “You’re right.” She admitted. “But there has to be some days of unimportant things all in a row soon. Eirtaé, can you find me my datapad, please?”

They found an appropriate time, two and a half weeks out and everyone else went back to bed. Padmé chafed at the idea of leaving Shmi enslaved for that long, but Eirtaé just rolled her eyes at her when she mentioned. “She survived, what, forty years before you came along. I’m sure she can survive another couple of weeks.”

Padmé flopped dramatically back down onto her bed. “I know. But I don’t like it.”

Eirtaé grumbled something, likely unkind, from her post by the door. Padmé picked up her com and decided against saying anything to Anakin about her plans just yet. Instead, she typed. “Sorry, the security team had to come down here (not an emergency) and they just left. It makes sense that you’re afraid for your mom. She’s in danger and worrying about her doesn’t make you a bad person.”

She didn’t expect him to respond until the next night, but evidently, he’d been waiting. “Thanks.”

She smiled at the com, set it on the table beside her, then closed her eyes, hoping to fall asleep.


End file.
